This is the online component of the humor section of the Argus, the Wesleyan University newspaper.

9/29/09

American Girl Doll Dresses up, Adresses Gender Politics

“I want my Rebecca to genderfuck,” Said Clair St. Giles, ten year old doll connoisseur. The American Girl Mega-Store employees were eager to help.

“Genderfuck is more of a noun, Peachblossm,” admonished the floor manager of the costume department. “But the gerund form is appropriate,” he conceded. “Genderfucking is so in season.”

The American Girl Doll Corporation (AGDC) has been producing high-end, historically-themed dolls for over a decade. The recently announced release of the Rebecca doll—timed to coincide with the Jewish/heathen harvest festival Sukkot—has caused quite a stir in the NYC doll world. Like all American Girl Dolls, Rebecca will come with a line of books and accessories.

As a girl growing up in the New York City of 1914, Rebecca celebrates treasured traditions passed down through her Russian-Jewish family as she tries to navigate the complexities of the gender binary.

“Kaya and Addy are just a bunch of Generation Y bullshit,” said little St. Giles.

“Basically, Rebbeca is a hot tranny mess,” said Grover Skhrotum, CEO of American Girl. “You can even see hir ambiguous genitalia if you put your face right upskirt.”

Rebecca is by no means the end of the line for AGDC. “We want her to usher in a new age of experimentation,” said Skhrotum. “How can we teach our youth to understand the interwoven continuum of biological sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation if we don’t have dolls leading the way? Rebecca is a good start. Is she a transsexual genderqueer tomboy or an androgynous intersex bisexual? These are the questions I want to hear our daughters asking.”

Sources inside the AGDC will not reveal the specifics of future product lines. “Except contraceptive accessories,” one reliable source hinted. “Expect—how should I put this—American Girl fetuses. American Girl umbilical cords. Plenty of placentas. By 2023, American Girl Dolls will be giving birth to live children. We are building an empire, a new race.”